4 Facing change BC farmers have seen worse years, to be sure. Yet the mix of a late spring,


prolonged flooding and then a sudden shift to dry weather in late June that led to fires in July made for headlines that resonated deeply with city dwellers. Throw in armyworms – a less photogenic threat – and farmers have had to navigate their share of challenges connected with the vagaries of a dynamic planet. To the city residents farmers feed, it was dramatic proof of a shifting climate.


While the fires were unprecedented, so was the collaboration between


federal and provincial governments that saw no less than nine ministers collaborate to deliver $20 million for relief and reconstruction. Sure, some of the money was part of existing programs, but the fact that all sides were able to agree that a sum should be made available as soon as possible – dollars should be flowing as this paper rolls off the press – is a genuine accomplishment. There’s no doubt the significant impact of the fires on First Nations communities helped accelerate the deal, highlighting the leadership they play in both rural communities and the importance of agriculture in sustaining the BC Interior. The future is more uncertain. This year’s weather underscores the genuine threat of climate change, not


through global warming so much as shifting weather patterns. Someone who changes like the weather used to be merely fickle; today, it’s more likely to suggest someone exhibiting bipolar tendencies. When the wildfire relief was announced, government officials emphasized the importance of preparing communities to deal with further record wildfire years. Disaster, it seems, is inevitable. Perhaps this is why installation of the province’s new NDP government


hasn’t triggered the end of the world many of its opponents predicted. It’s leaving that to Mother Nature.


Sure, the new government has an agenda, not all of it friendly to farmers.


Plans to address groundwater contamination and boost the carbon tax will face pushback. BC agriculture minister Lana Popham has told farmers of all political stripes


as well as Opposition MLAs that her door is open for them to voice their concerns and collaborate on solutions. If the work yields the kind of results wildfire relief discussions did, it will be a welcome change.


Finally, a weed agriculture could get high on


Cannabis – aka marijuana, pot, grass, weed, ganga, hemp, reefer and more than a thousand other names. For better or worse, depending on your point of view, the possession and use of cannabis is set to


The Back Forty BOB COLLINS


become


legal in Canada next July. A quick search of the Internet offers arguments from those opposed to legalization on the grounds that it will unleash reefer madness to testimonials that “smoking marijuana made me smarter,” and every imaginable conclusion in between. The only true reefer madness is thinking that there is any possibility of a public consensus on the issue. The political reasoning driving cannabis legalization, on the other hand, isn’t too hard to follow: the medical use of marijuana is already legal, illegal recreational use is already widespread and the cultivation and distribution of marijuana is already generating big bucks. Legalization is the only practical means of siphoning billions of those bucks into the government’s coffers. Hopefully, current users will appreciate not being branded criminals and reward the government at the ballot box. With any luck, most of the rest will simply conclude, ”what the heck; if you can’t stop it anyway, you might as well make some money from it.”


Cannabis legalization could mean an estimated 600,000 new users and the total value of the enterprise could exceed $22 billion. That might be conservative. Colorado, home to 5.5 million people, legalized marijuana in 2012 and currently estimates


total sales will exceed $20 billion in four more years. Colorado manages to get its hands on 15% of gross marijuana sales. If 36 million Canadians are up to the challenge, they should be able to puff their way through seven times as much marijuana as the folks in Colorado and deliver their government a tidy $22 billion share of the pie. Regardless of how you feel about marijuana, it is


obvious that there is too much money at stake to leave it in the hands of small-time criminals. It is time to seize control and confer the respectable mantle of legal business, ditch the mom and pop growers and the unsavory pushers in favour of big business. From an agricultural perspective, production will be tightly controlled and there is little likelihood that new producers will have a new entrant program. If you want to grow outside the system, you will find that four plants are the marijuana equivalent of 99 hens in the egg industry. Except you can’t sell any of the marijuana. Every household in the country will be allowed to grow four plants with the stipulation that none exceed one metre in height. What is it about cannabis that could be turned into a $140 billion industry? How does it work? It’s not really complicated, though its explanation requires some baffling terminology. Here goes: Cannabis has psychoactive properties. Simply put, it can affect your mental processes, like Facebook but not the same. The compound that makes cannabis


psychoactive is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The human brain is filled with hundreds of billion neurotransmitters. These transmitters are anandamide molecules which fit perfectly into a neuro-receptor slot called CB1. THC molecules, as it turns out, are dead ringers for anandamide and fit


Publisher Cathy Glover


The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915 Vol. 103 No. 10 . OCTOBER 2017


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into the CB1 receptors almost perfectly. What is the difference between being stoned and being drunk? In simple terms, think of a mind as your neighborhood tavern. Think of alcohol molecules as angry bikers who kick the door in, then proceed to rough up the customers and even kill a few. Think of THC molecules as sneaky partyers with fake ID’s. Both groups can be trouble when it comes to things like driving a car, but as a rule the THC crowd don’t leave as much mess. Cannabis also contains a compound called cannabidiol (CBD), which is not psychoactive. It does have significant health benefits relating to inflammation, pain, anxiety, psychosis and seizures. CBD really came to prominence with Charlotte Figi. Figi first started having epileptic seizures when she was three months old. By the time she was six, she was having 300 grand mal seizures a week and was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome. With no effective treatment, her parents turned to cannabis oil from a variety low in THC but high in CBD. The seizures stopped almost immediately and years later the girl is living a normal life with two or three seizures a month.


Along with THC and CBD, cannabis sativa is also a


source of hemp fibre. The presence of THC has given the whole family a bad name that genetics could overcome. In terms of genetic advancement, cannabis turns out to be a lot like milk cows. Current THC levels in cannabis are four times higher than they were at Woodstock in 1969 back when a fresh cow milking 50 pounds was doing okay. Socially, medically and economically, cannabis is about to make a grand entrance. Let’s hope the door opens wide enough for some agricultural opportunity to slip through.


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